


Hold On

by kickflaw



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-08
Updated: 2010-05-08
Packaged: 2017-10-09 09:06:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kickflaw/pseuds/kickflaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ficlet for the prompt <i>Merlin, Arthur/Merlin, hold on</i>. Pre-slash. Arthur finds out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold On

****

Hold On

Arthur clenched his sweaty hand around Merlin's wrist, felt the bones shift together in his grip, but it didn't matter. Merlin was slipping.

"Arthur," Merlin said, dangling over the precipice, the cliff that had not been a cliff moments before. The ground had crumbled away beneath Merlin's feet in a split-second, too fast for Arthur to snatch him to safety. Arthur had barely had enough time to catch his arm as Merlin began to fall, down into seething, rocky river below.

"Shut up," Arthur gritted out, struggling. He was strong, very strong, but Merlin was a grown man, and Arthur's muscles were already seizing. His shoulder throbbed; it had been wrenched when Merlin's weight caught up with Arthur's desperate hand.

Merlin's eyes were dark and calm. "The ground might still be unstable, you have to get back. Let me go."

"No!" Arthur shouted, shoving his knees and palm into the gritty earth, trying to get some leverage.

"I'll be fine," Merlin said, incredibly.

Arthur stared at him. "You--you--Just hold on, you idiot. I'll get you up."

"I'll be fine," Merlin repeated. "Trust me, Arthur."

"No!" Arthur said again, but Merlin's skin was too slippery now, sliding smoothly out of his fist, all at once, and Arthur was left clutching the air, yelling, "Merlin! _No_!" as Merlin fell and fell and fell away.

Arthur shouted himself hoarse, hurling abuse at Merlin, at the river, and the damned, betrayed earth, until his throat grew raw. Then, heavy and sick and hollow, he trudged back to their small hunting camp, where the little signs of Merlin's life--his bed roll, the left-over burnt quail, the quiet mare he liked to ride, his little satchel of medicine--made him want to start screaming all over again.

Merlin was dead, and in the stupidest way possible--because Arthur hadn't been smart enough to see the instability of the overhang, hadn't been fast enough to pull him back, hadn't been strong enough to hold on to him, hadn't been--

Arthur kicked at the rock circle around their cold firepit, grief like pain in his heart and throat, tight.

"Great," said someone in Merlin's voice, "now I'll have to redo the whole pit."

Arthur whirled to see--to see Merlin, standing at the edge of the clearing, looking as if he'd only been taking a piss in the forest rather than plummeting to his death off a cliff. He wasn't even wet.

Arthur took a step back and drew his sword. "Who are you, sorcerer?"

The man with Merlin's face laughed a little hysterically. "Sorcerer yes, stranger no. It's me, Arthur. I told you I'd be fine." At Arthur's scoff, he spread his hands helplessly, entreating. "Remember that time in your room, when I fed you the rat stew, and then we tricked Morgana into eating it? It's me, Merlin."

Slowly, Arthur lowered his sword. He stared at Merlin and Merlin gazed back, shifting under the scrutiny. A million thoughts whirled through his head, too many to put straight, but mostly focused on _Merlin isn't dead_.

"You used magic," Arthur said eventually.

His words seemed to set Merlin's tongue loose. "Yeah, well...not really. I tried, but I couldn't--flight, and all, it's a pretty big deal, I don't know if I can do that, but--yeah. I, um, I can't die. I don't think."

"...What?" Arthur said.

Merlin looked even more uncomfortable. "I can't die. I'm," he gestured vaguely, "immortal? Maybe."

"You can't fly, but you're immortal," Arthur repeated, incredulous, because of course, leave it to Merlin to have the strangest and most foolish magic in all Albion.

"So far, yeah," said Merlin. "Working on that first part."

Arthur shook his head and sat down heavily. "You amaze me."

Tentatively, Merlin sat down next to him. "In a good way?"

"No," said Arthur.

"But," Merlin said, "you're not going to tell your father? I'm pretty sure if he beheaded me it'd just...reattach, or something. But. It would be pretty unpleasant. And then he'd burn me at the stake, and I'm not sure how that'd work, but I really don't want to have to find out."

"I won't tell my father," Arthur said and it occurred to him that his utter lack of hesitation, the complete surety he felt at what was, basically, treason against his own father, was perhaps out of character for him. He couldn't bring himself to worry though; he trusted Merlin not to enchant him, for whatever reason, and, having been faced with a world where Merlin no longer stood at his side, he realized now that there was very little he wouldn't do to prevent that world from coming to be.

"Good," said Merlin. "Good. Thank you."

Instead of answering Arthur reached out and took Merlin's wrist, curled his fingers around it and held on.

* * *

END


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